Records show another six-figure code fine reduced for Miami city attorney’s husband
The husband of Miami’s city attorney had a code enforcement lien reduced by about $117,000 in April 2019 — the second time in eight months that a city board dramatically reduced hefty fines for a property he owned.
Property records show Carlos Morales, owner of Express Homes Inc. and husband of Miami City Attorney Victoria Méndez, has flipped homes in Miami-Dade County for years, including some in the city where his wife is the top legal officer. His business activity was thrust into the spotlight after Morales and Méndez were sued in Miami-Dade Circuit Court last week over allegations they conspired to enrich themselves through a real estate scheme that involved buying a Little Havana home at “below market value,” having $271,250 in code enforcement fines wiped out in July 2018 and selling the property for a profit.
Méndez and Morales denied any wrongdoing, and Méndez said the lawsuit was a tactic being used by attorneys representing Little Havana businessmen in a separate lawsuit over alleged code enforcement harassment.
“Carlos Morales, his related company Express Homes, and the City of Miami Attorney are completely innocent,” wrote Matthew Ladd, who represents Morales and Express Homes, in a statement. “They are the victims of an unethical ploy to leverage personal litigation against the City’s employees and their families in an effort to resolve the stalled federal suit.”
Ladd wrote that Morales has worked for years “above board” on buying homes that are in disrepair, remodeling them and clearing up liens on the properties.
Read more: City attorney’s husband bought a house that had $271,250 in fines. Now there’s a lawsuit
A review of Miami code violation records shows another property Morales owned, 90 SW 33rd Ave., had code enforcement fines of $121,250 reduced to $3,750 by the city’s code enforcement board in 2019.
Both properties that Morales was successful in getting the whopping code enforcement liens eliminated or reduced were acquired by his company from the Guardianship Program of Dade County, a private nonprofit that receives state funding to take care of incapacitated people who do not have anyone to manage their affairs.
City records show Morales asked for a hearing on the lien for 90 SW 33rd Ave., before the city’s code enforcement board, staffed by citizens appointed by the city’s mayor and commissioners. When the board heard the matter on April 4, 2019, with five of seven members present, a motion for the large mitigation passed 4-1, according to meeting minutes posted on the city of Miami’s website. A record of the reduction in the lien was reviewed in public records by the Herald on Monday.
Board members Eduardo Moralejo, Eric Nemons, Hemant Patel and Carlos Dulzaides voted to bring down the fine. Allyson Warren cast the lone no vote. The board had the same members during the July 2018 vote that wiped out the large fine cited in the lawsuit, but the breakdown of the vote is not available online in the city’s record of meeting minutes.
In his statement, Ladd said Morales followed a typical process to have fines reduced by the code enforcement board, and Morales did not benefit from being married to Méndez.
“None of the officials responsible for resolving the violations included the City Attorney,” wrote Ladd.
Francis Suarez was attorney on some transactions
The Guardianship Program did business with Morales’ company 14 times over 12 years, according to a report published Tuesday by WLRN, a Herald news partner.
Records from some of Morales’ real estate transactions show one of Miami’s best-known politicians helped finalize the paperwork. Mayor Francis Suarez, then a commissioner representing District 4, prepared and filed deeds as part of multiple real estate transactions involving Morales.
According to a Herald review last week of Miami-Dade County real estate records, between 2011 and 2014, Suarez was listed as having prepared documents for at least eight transactions in which Express Homes Inc. was either buying or selling property, including two instances in which the company bought homes from people in the Guardianship Program.
Seven of those transactions occurred before Suarez voted in favor of appointing Méndez as city attorney in September 2013. Méndez had worked in the city attorney’s office since 2004, rising through the ranks over the years. Suarez, first elected to the commission in 2009, was a real estate attorney working for law firm Alvarez & Barbara, LLP.
In a 3-2 Miami Commission vote, Suarez made the motion to hire Méndez on Sept. 12, 2013. Before he cast his vote that day, according to a transcript of the meeting minutes, he said he had spent a significant amount of time with all the candidates, though he would’ve wanted to spend “twice, three times, four times, maybe five times the amount of time with all the candidates or more, and particularly some that are not internal to the city that we haven’t worked with.”
“But, you know, it is what it is,” Suarez said before the 2013 vote. “I think I’ve made every effort to be fair and, you know, to give equal time to all the candidates.”
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Suarez told the Herald that his work on the real estate transactions did not influence his vote for Méndez to be named city attorney.
“No. Then-Commissioner Suarez’s vote was based on the merits of the candidates who were being considered,” said Soledad Cedro, Suarez’s communications director.
She said that his work as a title attorney was in no way related to his official duties as a commissioner, and that all of his clients were treated in the same manner and offered the same services.
The paperwork offers a rare glimpse into the private work of Suarez, who has for years declined to disclose his client list from his private-sector jobs.
Suarez, who is considering a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is currently a senior operating partner at private equity firm DaGrosa Capital Partners, and he’s also of counsel at the Miami office of national litigation firm Quinn Emanuel.
This story was originally published March 7, 2023 at 5:36 PM.
